I just don't understand why people can't accept that people are different. You don't have to like their differences, but at least show common decency and respect. At this is not a party line things either, I see it from all walks of life and people.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot. There’s a couple factors at play, IMHO:
1. Distance. The curds have essentially separated from the whey over time. Urban sprawl, neighborhoods, geographic divides, etc. People have geographically located themselves with other like-minded people. People are not - especially in COVID times - exposed regularly to people who differ from them. That allows for dehumanization of people who are different.
2. Dopamine. People have a natural instinct to seek out things that make them feel good. One way is to reinforce our own beliefs with like-minded people. Creating the echo chambers, so to speak. You can look at various threads here (Thanks Y’all) to see how riled up people get in beliefs without substance or question.
3. Fight or flight. On the flip side, now that we are geographically separated and have formed our echo chamber, we now hear things occasionally that are different which causes a fear response. Our survival instinct tells us to get together with our tribes and find a way to kill what we perceive as a threat. Our empathetic response is disabled, because like I said in 1, we have dehumanized the source of that opposing view.
4. Media and modern politicians have noticed and exploited points 2 and 3 above, reinforcing both our dopamine and our fear. It’s a simple equation. They exploit our animalistic instincts - which are rooted to our survival - thus overwhelming our advanced evolved human intelligence. This allows them to maintain a state of control in their search for power, fame and wealth. They also take advantage of point 1 above through gerrymandering.
I think there’s a lot more too, but that’s just a bird’s eye view of some of my shower thoughts on the topic.
